Cairo Between Traces And Liberal Re-Foundation: Demographic Stabilization, Extension Of The Metropolitan Area, And The Renewal Of Forms

10.1163/ej.9789004162402.i-1500.284

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Chapter Summary

Our aim here is to show that these stereotypes of Cairo will not bear analysis. The city's contemporary evolution may be divided into phases corresponding to the global time of very large metropolises. Functional, political, demographic and social transformations reshape its ecology, both its forms and the ways of acting and living in it. Cairo has, since independence, seen over-investment in the aim of affirming itself as the functional capital, modern and productive, of an independent nation state. Over some twenty years, Cairo, the fifteenth largest city in the world with its twelve million inhabitants, has experienced a renewal marked by demographic stabilization, the affirmation of command functions and the improvement of major infrastructures. Cairo has, since independence, seen over-investment in the aim of affirming itself as the functional capital, modern and productive, of an independent nation state.